Twitter has agreed to pay $150 million
in fines after the US government sued the social media company
Twitter asked users for personal information to secure their accounts, but then used that information to target users with ads
The social media company misrepresented the “security and privacy” of user data over a number of years
According to the federal lawsuit, Twitter failed to tell its users for years that it used their contact information to help marketers
This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter’s primary source of revenue
Under the settlement, Twitter was barred from misleading the public about how it protects consumer data
The complaint also alleges that Twitter’s conduct violates the terms of a 2011 settlement stemming from two hacking incidents
The agreement also requires Twitter to improve its compliance practices.
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